Various photographic elements have been known for forming images. For example, there are silver halide black-and-white photographic light-sensitive materials to be processed by wet processing, coupler-process silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials, silver-dye bleach process color photographic light-sensitive materials, color diffusion transfer process photographic light-sensitive materials, etc., and, in addition, a combination of (1) a heat-developable color light-sensitive material comprising light-sensitive silver halide and a dye-providing substance capable of producing or releasing a diffusible hydrophilic dye as a function (direct or inverse) of the reduction reaction of the light-sensitive silver halide to silver by heat development and (2) a dye-fixing material for transferring and fixing the dye in the presence of a small amount of water, described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,500,626, 4,483,914, etc.
An increasing demand has recently existed to shorten the processing time required for obtaining a final image using such photographic elements. That is, with black-and-white photographic light-sensitive materials forming silver images, it has been required, particularly with medical X-ray films for which rapid processing is of importance, to accelerate development processing for obtaining desired maximum image density in a short time, and, with color photographic light-sensitive materials, improvements in accelerating desilvering have been desired as well as acceleration of development processing. Furthermore, with color diffusion transfer light-sensitive materials, the shorter the time from photographing to formation of final image, i.e., the shorter the time of development and transfer of dye image, the greater the commercial merit of the materials. Similarly, in the color image-forming process of heat-development type, it is desirable to accelerate transfer of a hydrophilic dye to a dye-fixing material in the presence of water.
In order to meet the above-described requirements, it has heretofore been employed to soften the coating film (usually gelatin film) of a photographic element in order to enable the processing solutions such as a developer, a bleaching solution, a fixing solution, water for image transfer, etc., to readily permeate into the film. However, when hardening degree of gelatin is reduced or a hydrophilic colloid such as polyvinyl alcohol, polyvinylpyrrolidone, dextran, or the like is added together with gelatin for the purpose of softening the film, the time required for absorbing water is not necessarily shortened, though a somewhat large swelling (due to the amount of water being contained in the film) is obtained. In addition, there arises a problem of deterioration of mechanical strength of the coating film and a problem of a contraction of the coating surface, called reticulation, in the drying step after photographic processing.